Hamden marks end of Newhall Remediation Project soil cleanup

Macky McCleary, Deputy Commissioner, CT DEEP, left, listens to State Representative Peter Villano, right, during a press conference Friday, January 04, 2013 at the Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church on Newhall Street in Hamden announcing the completion of the cleanup of contaminated soil on approximately 240 residential properties in Hamden's Newhall neighborhood. Villano was instrumental in remediation effort. Photo by Peter Hvizdak / New Haven Register

HAMDEN -- The Newhall Remediation Project is, for the most part, complete.

A ceremony was held Friday at Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church on Newhall Street to mark the end of a $70 million project to remove 131,700 cubic yards of contaminated soil from 240 mostly residential properties.

"Just the concept that was originally delivered, that we can safely remove 4 feet of soil and backfill it without damaging the neighborhood -- a lot of people were skeptical, including me," Mayor Scott Jackson said. "And, unbelievably, this incredibly complicated engineering project finished early."

The story began more than a century ago, when the Newhall neighborhood was little more than a stretch of wetlands. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said those wetlands were used to dump waste material from the late 1800s until the 1950s, mostly by Winchester Repeating Arms Co.

Advertisement

The landfill included heavy metals -- mostly lead and arsenic -- as well as pollutants from wood and coal ash. Olin Corp., which now owns Winchester, split the $70 million bill with the state.

Newhall's contaminated soil was discovered in 2000, during a planned expansion of the old middle school. Signs that the neighborhood had been built on landfill were apparent long before that, though. Many of the homes in Newhall were literally sinking into the ground.

Restoring these homes, or, in some cases, demolishing them, is an ongoing process. But Jackson said the hardest part of the job -- removing contaminated soil -- is over.

"When you have holes all over the neighborhood and roads shut down and people concerned about particulate matter in the air and everything else -- this was the hard part. This was the tricky part," Jackson said.

State Rep. Peter Villano, D-Hamden, who represents the Newhall neighborhood, said he was glad to see the restoration project through to its end, in part because he leaves office in a few days. He said helping to shepherd the project to completion is one of the proud accomplishments of his 20 years in office.

"The entire neighborhood has been transformed," he said. "It's a beautiful suburban neighborhood, really. Homes have been fixed up, new homes, curbs, fencing and everything -- I think it's beyond our imagination when we started this."

The scope of the Newhall cleanup went beyond the 8,7000 truckloads of soil.

Ripping out that much soil meant trees and shrubs went with it. Sidewalks, driveways and other structures were torn away, too.

But in their place, 80 structures -- mostly decks and sheds, were rebuilt. About 4,700 shrubs and trees were replanted after contaminated soil was taken away. More than 200,000 square feet of driveways and parking areas were replaced, and almost 3.8 miles of sidewalk were rebuilt.

Dan Esty, state commissioner of DEEP, said he is in a position to receive lots of bad news -- oil spills, power outages, mill fires, etc. So he said he was very happy to be in Hamden for "very, very, good news."

"It's an extraordinary outcome in terms of environmental remediation," said Esty. "And more than that, returning a neighborhood and a community to real livability and vibrant economic opportunity."

But work in Newhall carries on. In addition to the $70 million cleanup program, Jackson said the state provided an additional $5 million through the Department of Economic and Community Development to the Hamden Economic Development Corp. to repair homes that were damaged because they were built on fill.

More than 60 homes already have been repaired. Fifteen more were so far gone that they were purchased and torn down.

The Southwest Regional Water Authority will be responsible for cleaning up the soil around the old middle school, starting in 2014.